Diversity of Thought

International Women’s Day x Knowledge Tuesday – Diversity of Thought

Culture

Knowledge Tuesday

What we do

Why diversity of thought and individual experience can lead to better technical solutions

Knowledge Tuesday

When we think of diversity, we can be quick to imagine a surface-level diversity – for example, considering a workplace that consists of people from different backgrounds, cultures, and genders. And whilst we appreciate it’s important to have diversity represented, we thought it was as valuable to explore why this matters so much.

An individual’s experience can influence their perspective, so a group of individuals with a diverse range of experiences can generate different ways of thinking about a problem. This week, we listened to the podcast, Invisible women: data bias in a world designed for men with Caroline Criado Perez (Innovation for All: Diversity in Tech and Business)which discussed consequences of male default thinking and how data bias affects women. The examples explored in this podcast shed light on the impact of women being excluded (albeit usually unintentionally) from the teams creating tech products and how diversity of thought could have led to a better solution.

After listening, we all discussed our key takeaways from the podcast, and how we can look to challenge ourselves to support diversity to create an environment where we think differently.

During our discussion, the team each recapped some of their key standout examples explored during the podcast. Some of these were:

A pregnancy belt designed to better protect pregnant women in cars is tested using a male crash test dummy – and was approved by EU standards.

Stoves designed to replace a version producing poisonous gases in the home had a poor uptake because the creators failed to consider women’s circumstances and needs.

Voice recognition software is much more likely to understand a man’s voice compared to a woman.

Artificial intelligence currently under development (and leading the future of tech) have been created with a data bias backdrop meaning solutions may not serve a far-reaching user base equally.

These each opened up conversations about the potentially harmful impact of data bias, male default thinking, and how more generally, thought diversity could reduce the likelihood of a negative outcome for some users.

A key takeaway from the podcast for each of us, was how valuable diversity is because it can create better work that serves a greater number of users. In the work we do, this notion is essential – organisations include people with various experiences and characteristics, so we aim to develop solutions that work for everyone. With this in mind, the team at EC work to:

1. Solutionise with, not for

We love talking to the end-users of digital tools or creative solutions to be guided by their needs. Our creative process includes collaboration with clients for this reason. Appreciating that a new perspective will add to a project’s potential impact on and value for users, we work together internally and externally to solutionise.

2. Approach the solution differently

Understanding the challenge from a number of angles can help us to diagnose and create a solution that works. We ask questions and more questions (but slightly differently) during our discovery sessions so we can solutionise with the end-user’s needs fully supported. To implement this we bring our functional teams together for different approaches to be identified in relation to the bigger picture.

3. Create an environment where diversity of thought can thrive

A key factor needed to achieve diversity of thought is fostering an environment where teams, regardless of their background, culture or gender, feel comfortable to speak up, contribute and challenge. Having conversations about relevant topics on Tuesdays, participating in Friday Challenges, and always inviting another person’s perspective is part of how EC builds this environment.

By following these themes in our work, we hope to continue to develop our technical approaches and how we support diversity internally and for our clients.

If you want to listen to the blog yourself, click this link.

We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please get in touch with us via LinkedIn!

At Electric Circus we’re an experience-led team. We understand the challenges of recruiting, retaining and developing talent. Our expertise blends creativity, digital solutions and communications strategy to create experiences that engage and connect with your employees through every phase of the talent lifecycle.

Whether you’ve read something intriguing about what we’ve done for other companies, or you’ve got a challenge that you can’t get your head around. Or even if you just want to know where we got our name.

We’re always happy to chat. Get in touch below.

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Written by Phoebe Haggart